E. Ben. Ez-Er; [Arnold, Ebenezer]. Elizabeth the Disinherited Daughter: A Monument of Free Grace in New England in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Printed by Hunt & Eaton, 1894. First Edition. [10840]
Brown cloth over thin card, bright gilt title to front, all page edges gilt, 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches, 98 clean pages, tight. Very good. Hardcover.
"Elizabeth had a lifelong conviction that God required the publication of His remarkable dealings with her, and in her approach to the river of death solemnly enjoined it upon her youngest son and executor. His own convictions also agree with the requirement." - Preface.
Three reasons are then given, 1. The early history of Methodism had lost so many accounts of the power of God shown in those days; 2. Elizabeth's account is too rare and too far back in American Methodism to allow its loss; The controversy with the "horrible decrees" of Calvinism is not finished, and this record is and example of overcoming them.
The author is Rev. Ebenezer Arnold (1816-1900), the son of Elizabeth Ward Arnold (1778-1865), the subject of the story. It is the account of a woman born to a well-to-do Connecticut family of Calvinistic beliefs, her conversion to Methodism, and the resulting rejection and disinheritance by her family. She marries, moves to western Massachusetts, and begins prayer meetings and evangelism with her neighbors. Eventually the couple moves to a new colony near Volney, New York, with her husband becoming a Methodist preacher. She had four sons, three of whom became Methodist ministers.
